


There is love inside this madness

by Deeambles



Series: Pool noodles and other assorted floaties [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M, Mito the angry ghost, Post-Fourth Shinobi War, Raido is civilan born here probably, hiruzen is probably to blame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 14:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20341450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deeambles/pseuds/Deeambles
Summary: There is a silence echoing his words that he can only imagine is from his supposedly out of the blue statement.Madara wishes he had just lost his mind. Then at least, he wouldn’t be living in temporary fear if Kakashi for some ungodly reason says yes.“Maa, Madara, Edo Tensei is a strictly forbidden technique, that has seen a lot of use recently for me to... justify that.”Madara lets the silence stretch because he’s well aware that Kakashi will absolutely use the jutsu for shits n giggles if it pisses off his council.





	There is love inside this madness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WrithingBeneathYou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrithingBeneathYou/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Standing Eight Count](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20034478) by [WrithingBeneathYou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrithingBeneathYou/pseuds/WrithingBeneathYou). 

> authors don't let other authors fill their rare pair ships alone :)

“Sages balls” Madara mutters. His eyebrows have taken residence up towards his hair line, and his jaw has come loose like a particularly stubborn door hinge.

“It is quite the fixer upper, my dear comrades, but I’m sure with enough hands and youthful energy we shall prevail!” Gai all but shouts over the quiet cloud of doom that has covered the other five shinobi present.

Well, four shinobi, one Hokage who will be leaving the second he’s able, and Madara, who for all intents and purposes, is a civilian.

“Maa, I’m sure you and Raido and Genma and Yamato and Madara will be able to handle this just fine, Gai. As for me, I have very important paperwork to do, being Hokage and all.” Kakashi finishes, completely ignoring three sets of eyes drilling through his stupid bullshit smile.

Madara is… still in state of shock, and therefore the last to turn back around to stare at the Rokudaime Hokage.

“Kakashi, I have to ask you something.” Madara mutters. He’s not quite over the state of the archives. Not yet. Cannot be.

Because how in the actual hell did they let it get this bad? It’s atrocious. Papers sticking out of everywhere, tables stacked with things that should definitely be sealed under tight restriction and not left in the open.

Madara is now absolutely sure that Konoha doesn’t have information breaches because there archive rooms are just hell versus their security being good.

Not that any of these reprimands are what leaves his mouth.

“Ah, yes?” Kakashi asks, eyes crinkly, and body casually leaning backwards as if to body flicker away.

“You don’t have plans to revive Uzumaki Mito do you?” Madara blurts.

There is a silence echoing his words that he can only imagine is from his supposedly out of the blue statement.

Madara wishes he had just lost his mind. Then at least, he wouldn’t be living in temporary fear if Kakashi for some ungodly reason says _yes._

“Maa, Madara, Edo Tensei is a strictly forbidden technique, that has seen a lot of use recently for me to... justify that.”

Madara lets the silence stretch because he’s well aware that Kakashi will absolutely use the jutsu for shits n giggles if it pisses off his council.

“Do you know who created this archive? Who organized it?” He asks instead

“Well” Kakashi drawls, “now I could probably guess.”

“I could have sworn it was Niidaime-sama.” Yamato but’s in with, “didn’t he put together a lot of the village administration?”

“Uzumaki Mito and Tobirama organized it.” Madara says, slowly, carefully, as if he’s talking to a toddler sized Kagami again.

“And if she saw this mess she would off everyone in this room and then—“

Madara pauses to think, it has been a long time since he was even coordinately friendly with the sea witch. He doesn’t think she’d go after the rest of the buildings occupants, but the Hokage, at the very least, wouldn’t be exempt. 

“— and then proceed to rebuild it from scratch and trust me, you don’t want that.”

“Uzumaki Mito?” Raido asks curiously “the first Hokage’s wife? Wasn’t she beloved and kind?”

Gai makes an amused sound and Genma snickers as Madara whole heartily takes Raido is face between his hands, and sincerely apologizes.

“I’m so sorry—”

“What?”

“— don’t interrupt. Someone has very much tricked you into thinking that Sea Witch—“

“Madara, I’m sure that the Lady Uzumaki—“ Gai unsuccessfully tries to cut in with—

“— was absolutely anything but the nastiest war god reincarnated as a human—“

Kakashi makes an interested noise but is ultimately cut off with—

“Then you are so mistaken, because she would kill everybody if she saw the room her and Tobirama spent hours trying to make have a functional organizational system become a literal rats trap. Like how even—“

Gai intercepts then, wrapping an arm around Madara’s and Raido’s shoulders and sticking his body in between, forcefully disengaging Madara’s hands.

“Ah my youthful friends—“

“I’m actually over a hundred, Gai”

“And the most youthful senior I have seen! But we shall not let Uzumaki Mito roll in her grave, and instead successfully reorder the room!”

“You can count on us, Hokage-sama!” Gai finishes with a blinding thumbs up.

“I’m sure.” Kakashi says flatly, “now, I really have to go. I have a meeting that nearly started a half an hour ago, I’m sure it’s very important.”

“Oh go fuck yourself, Kakashi” Genma says, smile and senbon both looking all of a sudden very sharp.

“Maa, Genma, if you didn’t want to be on punishment duty then you should of—“

Genma spits it then, and it catches fire and then Kakashi is gone, himself replaced with an office plant Madara knows is nowhere close by considering how deep below the tower they are.

“Fine. We’re going to do it how it was before because I know that it works that way and clearly something has gone terribly wrong in that last century if looks like this.” Madara all but shouts over Genma’s muttered cursing and Raido’s very self-deprecating laughter.

Gai lets out an encouraging shout that’s two parts encouragement and one part amusement, as Madara takes charge and orders the tokubetsu jonin and Yamato to different corners of the room with very specific, no way you can fuck it up, orders.

Madara still very much expects a fuck up and keeps Gai close by when one of these shelves inevitably decides to come down on Madara’s, very much civilian, head.

As he shifts through some old incredibly outdated farming zones, and deftly ignores a coffee cup that has something growing out of it, Madara briefly lets himself think that slipping into the role of commander was easier than he thought. That even for something simple like cleaning up the archives, the shinobi followed without hesitation, despite, well, everything.

You can take the shinobi out of the war but you can’t take the war out of the shinobi, Madara thinks, amusedly grim. Tajima would be so proud.

Gai slips by then, a quick but soft kiss to his temple has grim thoughts melting away like butter.

Madara lets himself smile in the way would of drove his (very late at this point) father nuts. Not because Gai is a man necessarily, nor the fact that Madara is making heart eyes but because—

Well because he’s Gai. And Tajima would have hated him with his blinding optimism and endless amounts of energy. It makes Madara smile just that much more.

Right up until he finds a very broken box with something that has the Uzumaki stamp that Mito favored on it. For one second Madara  
cannot actually believe the place has gotten that bad, before a much more pressing thought crosses his mind.

Kakashi didn’t actually answer his question earlier.

_Fuck_

**Author's Note:**

> madara: *holds Raidos face between two pieces of bread* what are you?  
Raido: an idiot sandwich


End file.
